Single mum Jennifer Price tells Paddy Shennan she’s re-opened a historic pub, for the love of her daughter

INSPIRATIONAL single mum Jennifer Price is living proof that where there’s a will, there’s a way. Former barmaid Jennifer, 31, seemed to be at rock bottom when she was made redundant last year, having worked full-time since the age of 18.

But this resourceful woman’s name is now above the door of a famous old Liverpool pub, which she has reopened and refurbished – for the love of her daughter.

After receiving priceless backing from family, friends and support organisations in the city, Jennifer is now the leaseholder and licensee of the born again Bear’s Paw in Irvine Street, Edge Hill, one of the oldest boozers in Liverpool.

And everything she is doing, she is doing for eight-year-old daughter Hannah – even to the extent of naming her company, Hannah’s Taverns, of which she is managing director, after her.

“I was really, really struggling, but now I’m aiming to be the next Mrs Wetherspoon with my own chain of pubs!” says Jennifer, who began working as a barmaid in Liverpool at the age of 18 and worked her way up in the trade, eventually becoming a general manager with the Yates’s Wine Lodge company in Chester.

“And I’m doing this for my daughter. Every hour I work is for her. I want to be in a position to be able to fund her through university – although, at the moment, she says she wants me to be rich so she can have a horse!

“I thought there was no way I was going to be able to run my own pub, but then I went to Reed In Partnership in Old Swan, which offers support to single parents, and was told about the various grants that are available. I also went to Train 2000 (the Liverpool-based organisation that provides enterprise services for women) and received a lot of support from them as well. Basically, I found out there is a lot of help out there for single mums and that we can, as a result, achieve things and live our dreams.”

And there were family reasons, one happy and one painfully sad, why Jennifer wanted to take out a 10-year lease on the Bear’s Paw (which had been closed for two years) towards the end of last year.

She explains: “My mum, Sandra Kirby, used to be a barmaid here when I was about 10. I remember collecting glasses for her – some of my customers today have said they remember me! – and history is repeating itself, because my Hannah loves putting her apron on and helping me.”

More sadly, she adds: “My brother, Gary, died 11 years ago – he was only 21 and committed suicide – and we had his wake here. I have so many ties with this pub, and there is also an aura about it for me. Something told me I had to have it.”

The landlady, who wants her pub – believed to date back to about 1800 and which she compares in atmosphere to the Aidensfield Arms in the TV series Heartbeat – to always have a real community feel, is also hoping the Bear’s Paw will one day be of greater historic significance. She explains: “We have a sandstone cellar which is connected to a corridor which, currently, has a dead end. But I have been told there is a hope that, in the next two or three years, it could be dug through to connect the pub to the famous Williamson tunnels.”

Jennifer now wants to let other women in a similar position to herself know that they, too, can succeed in the business world.

She says: “A lot of women who want to set up businesses struggle simply because they don’t know what’s out there. I know I couldn’t have done any of this without the support of my family and friends or the organisations that have helped me.”